The Most Painful Goodbyes
by Lyrical Liquorice
Summary: *Spoilers for DH2* Set the night after the battle of Hogwarts. The Weasley family attempting to cope on their first night back home. Please review x


**The Most Painful Goodbyes Are The Ones That Are Never Said.**

The night after the demise of Lord Voldemort was a sleepless one.  
>A mere look between Arthur and Molly had decided that The Burrow was the only place for them to go now that they were safe once again.<p>

Molly had cried as she stood outside the only real home she knew yet had been unable to live in for so long, as Arthur wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

It was safe at last and seemingly unaltered after a few charms had been cast. The normality of the house seemed uncomprehendable considering the devastation that had recently touched every life in the wizarding world.

No one ate that night. No one mentioned the events that had occurred throughout the last day or so, even though it was all anyone could think about.

There was a loss about the house that no one mentioned, but was evident in the very air that they breathed. A lack of laughter and witty banter.

_**Ginny lay in her bed**_, her back to the window where Harry sat, gazing up at the sky. She was pretending to sleep, but both knew that there was no chance of that. Not tonight. Instead she lay awake, staring at nothing in particular but darkness itself.

_**Harry was counting the stars**_, running the final moments of Lord Voldemort over and over again in his head, trying to force the fact that it was all over into his mind. He'd never really took the time to notice the stars lately.

He'd always assumed that there was nothing beyond the fear and misery of the last year. Finally, he could see that there were things to look forward to. A future which didn't promise the certain death of the people he cared about. Not by the hand of Voldemort at least.

_**Bill and Fleur were curled around eachother**_ in bed, Bill's arms wrapped around Fleur's seemingly tiny form. Bill could feel the steady heartbeat of his wife, listening to her steady breathing.

She was replaying the battle, and the moment, the split second, in which she shouted the two words that formed the forbidden curse that every witch and wizard had been taught to fear. She'd used it against a death eater and watched as the green light jetted out from the end of her wand; gazed with wide open, shimmering blue eyes as the light collided with the cloaked enemy.

Although most of the details of the battle had been lost in the deepest depths of Fleur's memory, she'd retained the shocked look on his face as he stilled and fell, almost like a child's toy that had carelessly been knocked from it's shelf.

Bill however, was unfazed by his wife's part in the use of the killing curse. The image of his younger brother was still fresh in his mind.

It seemed as though the picture of Fred's body had been fixed to the inside of his eyelids, for every time Bill tried to close his eyes, he could see his body, laid in the great hall with Molly clutching at his clothes in a desperate attempt to keep contact with her son.

_**Molly busied herself knitting**_ on the sofa, her wand placed on the coffee table as she manually set about knitting nothing in particular. Her mind was wandering as the clacking of the needles kept a steady rhythm.

She glanced up at the clock. All the hands had moved from 'Mortal Peril', the place which all hands had pointed to for the last two years, barely shifting. All the hands now pointed to 'Home', all but one.

The knitting needles clattered into Molly's lap as a hand shot to her mouth. Fred's grinning picture was pointing to 'Lost'. Stifling a sob, she closed her eyes.

Her son was gone. Her Fred. Her baby boy. No words of comfort anyone could offer would change that.

_**Hermione was reading **_though her old text books, wondering to herself what the new ones would be like when they contained the detailed information of the rise and fall of the darkest wizard of all time. How would they describe the fight, the exact details of his demise?

Would she find herself arguing out against the untruths of the future book's words, strewn across it's yellowed parchment? She wondered how they would describe the students of Hogwarts who rebelled against the 'Dark Lord'. Maybe they'd sugar coat the events for the purpose of future students.

Silently deciding that no sugar-coating would take place, no untruths about the events that had torn apart the entire workings of Hogwarts, Hermione shut 'Hogwarts: A History' and located her parchment, ink and quill.

Tonight would be the night she began her book, telling the world the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

_**In the back bedroom, Ron was curled up in the wooden rocking chair**_, his legs pulled up, and his eyes running over the unaltered details of the room he'd grown up in.

He could see ghosts of his younger self, grinning as Harry moved in for the summer. There had been midnight conversations with Harry and Hermione, filled with giggling and the secret smuggling of chocolate frogs.

The day he'd gotten his letter, and his mother had brought it up to his room, leaving it on the pillow next to him for when he woke. Though he'd been sure that he would receive one, it didn't stop the flood of relief when his eyes washed over the red seal's ridged Hogwarts emblem.

Then there was that one time...he couldn't have been more than 5 or 6, when Fred and George used to creep into his room on Christmas eve when Ron couldn't sleep. They'd make a fort out of bedding and sit there until the early hours of the morning. Ron smiled faintly as he let the bittersweet memory wash over him like icy water.

_**There was a room in the house that seemed darker than the others**_. It was as though a dementor had been there, and sucked every inch of light or happiness from it's crevices. This was of course the room that George Weasley occupied, the room he used to share with the other half of his soul.

George was leaning against the headboard of his bed with his long legs pulled up against his lanky body, his chin resting on his knees. His green eyes were focused on the end of his wand, from which red sparkling jets were forming before fading after a few seconds. George continued absent mindedly to create these firework-esque streams of shimmering light that bathed the room in a temporary glow.

Molly had gone to check on her son an hour previously, and stood in the shadows just beyond the open door. She'd been unable to see George at first, then in the glow of the red streams she saw the tears rolling freely down his cheeks.

He didn't blink as he stared ahead of him, although his vision was blurred by the brimming tears. Seeing the remaining twin so broken, Molly turned away, a hand over her heart and wept. George hadn't even registered his mother's presence.

Now here he was, still crying. Still casting pointless spells. Still feeling hollow, and broken, and empty. He was sure that this feeling would never ease.

'Fred and George', he thought to himself. It was always _**Fred **_and George.  
>Now it was just George.<p>

_Fin._


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